Depression Part Three: Social Support

(Author’s Note: Much of the material for this post and subsequent posts in this series comes from this document on men’s mental health problems.)

Men are currently undergoing a social support crisis.

“Social capital” is the social connectedness of a particular person– his or her connections within and between social networks. In study after study, men have been shown to have a lower level of social capital than women. Two-thirds of British women feel fully engaged with their social group, compared to a little more than half of men; 17% of British men report complete disconnection and lack of support, compared to 11% of British women. Men are less likely to contact their friends often, less likely to be attached to their neighborhood, less likely to feel social support.

This is a serious problem. Human beings are social animals. Feeling supported by one’s social group is key in not only recovering from depression when one has it but in preventing depression in the first place. Feeling completely and utterly alone can, and usually does, make people depressed and suicidal– and coupled with the withdrawal and isolation characteristic of depression, it can make getting the support a depressed man need far more difficult. Less than a third of British men feel comfortable talking to their family or friends about their emotions (compared to about half of British women); the other two-thirds could easily be horribly depressed and no one would know or be able to offer support.

Far too many men have essentially one source for emotional support: their romantic partners. Half of British men are comfortable talking to a romantic partner about their feelings (the other half, one hopes, are single, not in ridiculously shitty relationships). Men in stable long-term relationships experience better mental health than men who are not, far more so than women. The death of a romantic partner, breakups and divorces are a common precursor to suicide; single men are the most likely demographic to kill themselves. Instead of relying on a robust social network, men all too often can only fully connect emotionally to one person.

Clearly, this does not have a biological basis. Men are surely capable of having strong platonic friendships, as we can see by taking a look at basically any culture except modern Western culture ever. One study suggests that four factors may make a man less likely to have strong emotional friendships: homophobia against gay men, strong emotional restraint, a lack of male parental models of strong friendship and strong masculine self-identity.

Hello, there’s our old friend femmephobia! Nice to see you, femmephobia. How have you been?

Femininity has long been associated with nurturance, care, emotions and mutual support. Masculinity has long been associated with friends who do things together and express their affection through nothing more than a manly handclasp. Two heterosexual women who snuggle together watching a movie is generally treated as a nonissue or at worst treated with a raised eyebrow; two men who snuggle together watching a movie are the gayest gay gay thing that ever gayed.

The strongest model of male friendship our culture has is the “bromances” of Judd Apatow movies, which are played for laughs, often referred to as being “gay” in a way a strong female friendship would not be and treated as a hangover of boyhood, proving how immature the main character is, that the man leaves behind when he grows up and gets married. Even the name presents a strong male friendship as an odd form of romance, as opposed to as its own creature.

But femmephobia isn’t the complete explanation. Homophobia, coupled with the idea that men always want sex and never want emotional engagement, means that male friendships will be interpreted as gay, which is clearly the worst thing ever. And fathers or other male caregivers who don’t have strong friendships, possibly because of these toxic cultural narratives, can leave men without a model for how strong male friendships even work, a lack which our culture does not make up for.

However, developing a strong model of male friendship is a necessity to battle the high rate of male depression. Men must be encouraged to seek emotional support from people besides their romantic partners; the society must stop accusing straight men who are close friends of being “gay” (and, incidentally, stop treating gay as a bad thing). Without it, far too many men will become depressed through loneliness and isolation and, without a community to turn to, will end up taking their own lives.

About ozyfrantz

Ozy Frantz is a student at a well-respected Hippie College in the United States. Zie bases most of zir life decisions on Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, and identifies more closely with Pinkie Pie than is probably necessary. Ozy can be contacted at [email protected] or on Twitter as @ozyfrantz. Writing is presently Ozy's primary means of support, so to tip the blogger, click here.

@Bro. Noah: The “men’s sheds” remind me of when I was an active Freemason. Most of the lodges around town, I discovered, were just where old retired men got to meet and socialize with guys their own age once a week. Indeed, part of why I lost interest in the organization was that I didn’t have a lot in common with them. In retrospect, though, it’s nice that they have somewhere to hang out. The A-hed (the offbeat story that runs on the front page most days) of Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal reminded me of this post. I’ll excerpt, for… Read more »

It seems that there are two cultural attitudes under which male friendship is culturally supported: the ones in which male homosexuality is pretty much unthinkable (most cultures in history; the relationship of Frodo and Sam in LOTR is perhaps the last great example of that in Western literature), and the ones in which male homosexuality is accepted as normal. We are currently on our way from one to the other, I think. Honestly I think the first type is better at it than the second.

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f.

6 years 23 days ago

@S.I, I think it may be important to distinguish between friendships and community. I don’t have a lot of close friendships, just 2 or 3 really plus my boyfriend, but I have a huge community of people who I would wave at, say hi to, really listen to that person if they want to tell me about their life. Not everyone may need that depending on our individual level of introversion, but I think it can be very enriching for people to have that kind of social structure around them – you know, neighbors who you can trust to pick… Read more »

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Schala

6 years 23 days ago

Especially odd structure if you find outliers to your groups, including people who were just ‘born into it’ and don’t really care about it. And trans people.

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Skidd

6 years 23 days ago

Heheh, probably true, Jim. Though it didn’t hurt that I was more interested in pokemon, frying bugs with my glasses, and dinosaurs at that age. My immediate family is weird — my dad has gone from working at home (and various short-term sales jobs) to functionally being a stay-at-home dad now, while my mom is out in the workforce. He also does 99% of the cooking. I don’t know how they handle finance, though I think both work on it. Church has become my dad’s primary social outlet that way — LDS church is pretty unique when it comes to… Read more »

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GemmaM

6 years 23 days ago

Jim — It’s a start, at least. I must confess, I had to stop myself from adding all sorts of caveats to my “okay, wow, men really do suffer this problem” statement above, because there are situations where that comes up which are fraught with all sorts of other conflicting issues that I also care about, etc. But maybe the best way to proceed is to admit that there are clear cases where this problem exists, and think about the more awkward cases as I go.

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Jim

6 years 23 days ago

Gemma, it’s reactions like yours coming form people like you – women – that have the most effect. So thank you. Sad that it’s that way for now, but the rest of your reaction will fix that bit too, probably. Skidd, it’s probably not so strange that you felt more comfrotable in boys’ groups – going with another gender is how you opt out of the hierarchy fights in your own. That’s how it works for dogs, and the more I look the more I see that’s how it works for humans. Scrapbooking instead of financial literacy? Different strokes for… Read more »

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GemmaM

6 years 23 days ago

Yikes, I’m glad there was pushback on the “oh, noes, a large gathering of men, they might be pedophiles” reaction! The more I see stuff like that, the more I realise that men really do face problems with being automatically assumed to be sexually dangerous.

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Skidd

6 years 23 days ago

Eeeh, there were some groups, but I actually had a lot of problems socializing with other girls and I didn’t like being in all-female peer groups. I went through the LDS church’s young women’s program, but activities like scrapbooking and making cookies just isn’t for me (though not all the activities were that stereotypically feminine). I would have rather done more camping things or learning useful skills like financial literacy. I did get to go to a boy scout adventure camp with the Young Women’s group, and that was fun. Though I’ll admit that much eyeroiling ensued on my part… Read more »

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Jim

6 years 24 days ago

Skidd, why weren’t you able to get int Girls Scouts or Campfire Girls? It’s a shame you weren’t. The LDS are especially good at youth groups and I wonder that those groups wouldn’t have been available. Both sinhgle-sex and mixed groups are important, and not just for kids. If kids have the mixed experience at school, then they should have access single-sex groups. It’s one thing when it’s a question of rationing of resources, and of public resources. But even then when it comes to resources there should be some way of doing “separate but equal”. Girls need someplace away… Read more »

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Skidd

6 years 24 days ago

In response to men’s groups, I think they’re pretty vital; especially for older men. There’s an active Lion’s club (they have a women’s segment, too) in my area (And an Elks club, I THINK), and boy scouting is a big deal, too. In fact, I think boy scout organization is a really powerful thing for young guys. The message of the organization is strong and largely unobjectionable (Scout law: A Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.), though there are definite problems with atheists, and gay and trans issues (as far as… Read more »

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Jim

6 years 24 days ago

Men’s Sheds – the program ran into opposition that is not unusual: http://www.coolum-news.com.au/story/2011/08/21/complaint-halts-mens-efforts-to-assist-youth/ …but fornuantely the situation has been resolved: http://www.avoiceformen.com/men/menshed-movement-gains-widespread-approval-and-government-money/ “@Gemma: The “men’s sheds” remind me of when I was an active Freemason. Most of the lodges around town, I discovered, were just where old retired men got to meet and socialize with guys their own age once a week.” Noah, the current generation of veterans has had s imialr experiences with the old-line organizations. Sometimes the organizations have made efforts ot adapt and sometimes the vets have built on-line communities. Bars as social centers – good on the… Read more »

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Cactuar

6 years 24 days ago

As I understood what was written, stillInverted, it’s about quality, not quantity. I think your observations are correct, but that they don’t contradict the point that was being made. I read the post as positing that men are being inhibited from forming these ‘truly close’ friendships, (as opposed to “friends who do things together and express their affection through nothing more than a manly handclasp”) not that you need to have tons of friends.

@Gemma: The “men’s sheds” remind me of when I was an active Freemason. Most of the lodges around town, I discovered, were just where old retired men got to meet and socialize with guys their own age once a week. Indeed, part of why I lost interest in the organization was that I didn’t have a lot in common with them. In retrospect, though, it’s nice that they have somewhere to hang out.

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Schala

6 years 25 days ago

I have zero close friend, unless you count my mother and brother and boyfriend.

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stillInverted

6 years 25 days ago

Ozy–is there hard scientific research that humans, male, female, or otherwise, need extensive social networks to emotionally function properly? I have plenty of acquaintances who have two or three close friends, and they seem to be perfectly well adjusted. In fact, I saw a study (and I wish I could remember what and where it was so I could link to it, but I don’t, goddammit) that suggested that people are only *capable* of two truly close friendships. Different people are different, and I’m not sure whether you’re letting a personal preference for a specific kind of social-network into this… Read more »

f: One of the stats I didn’t end up using in the article suggested that men may use alcohol or drugs as a method of self-medicating their emotional restraint so they could connect to other men.

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f.

6 years 25 days ago

Geo and Gemma, that’s really cool. I’m thinking of some other places I know of that have attracted a male following. For example, I’ve noticed that the community project I work for, which is a food co-op, is attracting a surprising number of guys – well, I guess I was vaguely surprised because food and cooking are so often considered a female thing, but our active membership is easily 70% male. Basically during our opening hours we hang out, play board games and drink beer. Sometimes there’s a barbecue outside. It’s been great for exchanging recipes and stories, planning other… Read more »

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Anny

6 years 25 days ago

I recently ended a romantic relationship partly for this reason- it’s important for me to have a network of different friendships and relationships, whereas the guy I was dating doesn’t really have other close friends. I felt pressure to be “everything” to him, and felt guilty about wanting to spend a lot of time with other friends (even though he insisted it was ok). It also took me longer to break up with him because it seemed like I would be leaving him without any close connections. So this not only hurts men who miss out on great friendships, but… Read more »

My ally/friend Stacey Bellem has started an organization which will hopefully be able to deal with a lot of what you are referencing in your excellent posting: http://www.theunifyingcenter.org – “The Unifying Center is a 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to the emotional health and well-being of men and boys across the globe. Our mission is to improve the gender-based, mental health care of men and boys, with a special focus on healing men and boys that have been impacted by some type of trauma or abuse. Central to our work is recognizing the impact contemporary masculinities have on men’s health, identity development,… Read more »